Chapter 18 Confession #2
Leo laughs. The joyless sound sends shivers down my spine.
“I needed a tester for the poison anyway. I convinced Declan that the Alpha was going to meet him at the bakery after the pack meeting. So he could say thank you for the cupcake. But I took the cupcake, I poisoned it, and I held him down while he took a bite. He tried to fight, but a little wolfsbane stopped that. Besides, I’m supposed to be the Alpha.
Of course I’d win. I hated to kill him, but I had no choice. He wasn’t loyal.”
Max’s jaw goes tight. “And Abigail? Was she loyal?”
Leo barks out a short laugh. “She thought we might be mates. I let her think so. Having a lawyer on my side… she was so damn scared all the time, but I did my best. I asked her to do one thing. Give the witch… the opossum… whatever… give her the tea. She did that. I thanked her just the way she liked, but do you know what she did? Made herself a cup! Dumb bitch drank the poison on her own because she felt bad for helping me kill the baker.”
Oh, Abigail… I know I should hate her for trying to kill me, but I… I get it. If she believed that Leo was her mate, she would do anything to make him happy. I would do anything—but I draw the line at murder.
“And last night? Were you trying to attack my mate on my territory?”
“Would it matter if I said ‘no’? I just wanted to look at her. A male can look, can’t he?”
Ew. No, thanks. And that, I’m pretty sure, was a lie.
“Hey. I have a question for you, Sheriff,” Leo says, his voice getting a little more snappish. Damn it. I think the quicksilver is wearing off. We won’t be able to trust what he says much longer, but that’s okay, I guess. We know most of what we need to know.
We know why Declan died.
We know what happened to Abigail.
So when Leo asks, “How did you know a wolf was involved?,” I’d kind of like to know the answer to that myself. Max said he knew… but how?
For a second there, I wasn’t sure that Max would answer. Shockingly, he does.
“The peppermint is what really made it obvious. Wolfsbane should’ve been enough to hide your scent when you were in the alley. But you wanted to make it heart. Only a wolf knows how bed peppermint extract stings.”
Leo curses under his breath. “I knew I shouldn’t have listened to—”
He clamps his mouth shut.
Max shakes him. “Who? Who told you to use peppermint? We know about Talia… who else helped you with this?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He spits at Max’s feet. Yeah… the quicksilver is done, isn’t it? “There are more of us than you know. Stop me. You can’t stop us all.”
Yeah. We’ll see about that.
We have our proof. A confession does it, and because Leo was feral enough that he did his big villain monologue in front of me, Max, Riordan, and the phone in Riordan’s pocket that he set to record as soon as this madness began earlier today, that should be good enough for now.
At least, that’s what I thought. Turns out, we weren’t quite done yet.
Riordan pulled out another injection, jabbing it into Leo’s neck. The second dose of quicksilver is more than enough to put the feral wolf under. He snarled the entire time the sedative does its stuff, eventually spitting and snapping his blunt human teeth before he collapsed on the dirt.
Max wasn’t taking any chances. He zip-tied Leo just in case the quicksilver failed. It wouldn’t trap him permanently, but it should hold a weakened shifter long enough to take him down—and out—again.
Once he was no longer a threat, Max threw back his head and howled.
It’s amazing, seeing a wolf’s cry pour out of his very human throat. He tapped into his wolf to make it, using so much of his power to send the howl out to every packmate in hearing distance.
It’s instinctive. If I ever needed proof that nothing Max did could ever have me playing dead, that does it. Because I didn’t. I didn’t wobble. I didn’t faint. I just stood in the clearing with him and his brother as dozens and dozens and dozens of wolf shifters come running toward us.
Some of them are in their skin. Some in their fur. From what I can see, they’re all mature shifters in the prime of their life; no gammas, no pups.
I don’t know who they seem more surprised to see: an opossum shifter standing between the Alpha and the Beta, or the unconscious fair-haired wolf at Max’s feet.
I’d say it’s pretty evenly split, but before I could really get a gauge of what’s going on here, Riordan looked at Max, a question in his expression.
Max nodded.
Riordan raised his voice. “The wolves of the Moonshadow Pack have gathered. They’ve answered their Alpha’s call. But we have another who believes he should rule.”
Showing off how strong he is, Riordan squats down, careful not to muss his shiny shoes or wrinkle his pants.
I can only imagine how much Leo must weigh, unconscious as he is, but Riordan lifts him up easily.
He carries him about ten feet away from Max, dropping him back to the dirt before rejoining his brother and me.
“Now… show respect to your Alpha.”
It’s a command. Just like when Riordan told me to ‘play dead’, he’s used his curse to his advantage. I’ve experienced the weight of his order. There is no way to refuse.
As one, every single shifter—in their fur, in their skin if they shifted back, or in the clothes they were wearing when they got called out—goes down on one knee.
A majority of the wolves genuflect in the clear direction of Max. But there are some… nine, maybe ten… who turn toward Leo’s body as they lower themselves to the dirt.
I gasp.
Max nods at Riordan again.
“If you pledged loyalty to the traitor… if you would have followed Leo Holloway to the ends of his insanity… stay where you are. Everyone else, rise.”
I wince this time. At least three others wolves stay down. It’s still a small number. Maybe twelve out of a hundred, but even one betrayal is like a dagger to Max’s chest.
Not that you could tell from his flat expression.
“Honey.” His voice is gentle, but strong as he addresses me. The sudden wariness trickling down our bond clues me in to how Max is really feeling. “You don’t have to be here for this if you don’t want to. Riordan can bring you back to the cabin.”
“I’d be honored to, Alpha,” Riordan calls out, making it absolutely clear where his loyalty lies.
He might have been born to be an Alpha. The curse might have taken it from him. Unlike Leo, he didn’t grow feral and twisted with hate. He didn’t try to overthrow the Alpha of the Moonshadow Pack without even giving Max the decency of trying to challenge him first.
No. Leo turned to murder while—and maybe I’m biased now—Riordan has become the best damn Beta ever.
He moves near me, keeping his distance because, well, the big male isn’t my mate.
Max doesn’t shift an inch, though I can sense how badly he wants to wrap me up in his arms and hold me close, shielding me from the realities of our supernatural world.
He’s a predator. I knew that going into this. As the sheriff, he needed proof that he caught the supe who killed Declan Rowe and Abigail Cloverfield. As Alpha, he needed to make an example of them so that the pack could have justice.
And he’s terrified that I’ll see this side of him and suddenly change my mind about being his mate.
Never gonna happen.
I scamper over to him. Going up on my tiptoes, resting my hand possessively on his shoulder, I grab his jaw with the other one. I tug Max toward me and, with all of the packmates gathered acting as witness, I kiss him.
You could hear a pin drop.
I grin against his lips, squeezing his trap as I pull back, dropping to my feet.
“I love you, Max,” I tell him, and though the kiss was for the pack’s benefit, the words belong to my Alpha. “I’ll be waiting for you at the cabin when you’re done.”
He’s a predator, but he’s mine, and that’s all that matters now.